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Electronic Discovery

The Only Thing We Have to Fear is eDiscovery Itself: eDiscovery Horrors!

As indicated by our friend “Jack”, today is Halloween!  This is our ninth(!) year to identify stories to try to “scare” you with tales of eDiscovery and cybersecurity horrors because we are, after all, an eDiscovery blog.  Let’s see how we do this year.  Michael Myers ain’t got nothing on us!

Does this scare you?

Did you know you could receive a bad faith sanction for your employees’ failure to follow your preservation policy?

What about this?

Here’s why you probably don’t want to murder someone wearing a Fitbit.  Or somebody you met on Tinder.

Or this?

You know your eDiscovery violations are bad when the order discussing them is so large, it needs a table of contents.  We’ll be discussing this one today!

How about this?

When does Twitter not have possession and control of its own direct messages?  Find out here.

Or maybe this?

More than two-thirds of data breaches take months to discover.

Have you considered this?

Here’s how a dead person’s finger can be an investigative tool.

Finally, how about this?

When the court is too busy to perform an in camera review of the defendant’s documents deemed privileged, it will just let the plaintiff have a “quick peek” at them.

Scary, huh?  If the possibility of sanctions, getting arrested for murder due to evidence from Internet of Things (IoT) devices (serves you right!), data breaches and dead fingers opening iPhones scares you, then the folks at eDiscovery Daily will do our best to provide useful information and best practices to enable you to relax and sleep soundly, even on Halloween!

Of course, if you seriously want to get into the spirit of Halloween and be scared, check out this video.  You won’t be able to “lego” of it!

What do you think?  Is there a particular eDiscovery issue that scares you?  Please share your comments and let us know if you’d like more information on a particular topic.

Happy Halloween!

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Tomorrow’s Webcast Will Help You Get a “Clue” Regarding Your eDiscovery Process: eDiscovery Webcasts

Why am I promoting our monthly webcast today instead of the actual day of the webcast (like I usually do)?  You’ll see tomorrow when we publish our ninth(!) annual Halloween list of eDiscovery “frights”.  Do you scare easily?  Then, don’t read tomorrow’s post!  :o)

As evidenced by some high-profile recent eDiscovery disasters, managing eDiscovery projects is more complex than ever. Not only have the volume and variability of ESI data sources increased dramatically, but there are often more stakeholders in eDiscovery projects today than characters on the board game Clue©. Successful eDiscovery today means not only meeting your obligations, but also making sure that each stakeholder in the process succeeds as well.  Tomorrow’s webcast can enable you to get a “clue” regarding your eDiscovery process – with a special guest!

Tomorrow at noon CST (1:00pm EST, 10:00am PST), CloudNine will conduct the webcast Get a “Clue” Regarding Your eDiscovery Process. In this one-hour webcast that’s CLE-approved in selected states, we will discuss the various participants in the eDiscovery process, what motivates each of them, and best practices on how to avoid becoming the next high-profile eDiscovery disaster. Topics include:

  • The Process: Managing the Project from Initiation to Close
  • The Phases: Managing the Flow of ESI Before and During the Process
  • The Players: Goals and Objectives of Each eDiscovery Stakeholder
  • Whodunnit?: Lessons Learned from a Large Financial Institution’s Mistakes
  • Whodunnit?: Lessons Learned from a Government Entity’s Mistakes
  • Whodunnit?: Lessons Learned from a Medical Center’s Mistakes
  • Recommendations for Avoiding Your Own Mistakes
  • Resources for More Information

I’ll be presenting the webcast, along with Tom O’Connor as always.  But, this time, we will have a special guest — Mike Quartararo!  Mike is the founder and managing director of eDPM Advisory Services, a consulting firm providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology professional services to law firms, corporate legal departments and service provider organizations. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery, which merges project management principles and best practices in electronic discovery.

To register for the webcast, click here.  Even if you can’t make it, go ahead and register to get a link to the slides and to the recording of the webcast (if you want to check it out later).  Three guys with beards on the Wolfman’s favorite day, what could be better!

So, what do you think?  Do you have a “clue” about how to avoid your own eDiscovery disaster?  If not, please join us!  And, as always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Clue Board Game Image Copyright © Hasbro

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Mike Q Says the Weakest Link in TAR is Humans: eDiscovery Best Practices

We started the week with a post from Tom O’Connor (his final post in his eDiscovery Project Management from Both Sides series).  And, we’re ending the week covering an article from Mike Quartararo on Technology Assisted Review (TAR).  You would think we were inadvertently promoting our webcast next week or something.  :o)

Remember The Weakest Link? That was the early 2000’s game show with the sharp-tongued British hostess (Anne Robinson) telling contestants that were eliminated “You are the weakest link.  Goodbye!”  Anyway, in Above the Law (Are Humans The Weak Link In Technology-Assisted Review?), Mike takes a look at the debate as to which tool is the superior tool for conducting TAR and notes the lack of scientific studies that point to any particular TAR software or algorithm being dramatically better or, more importantly, significantly more accurate, than any other.  So, if it’s not the tool that determines the success or failure of a TAR project, what is it?  Mike says when TAR has problems, it’s because of the people.

Of course, Mike knows quite a bit about TAR.  He’s managed his “share of” of projects, has used “various flavors of TAR” and notes that “none of them are perfect and not all of them exceed all expectations in all circumstances”.  Mike has also been associated with the EDRM TAR project (which we covered earlier this year here) for two years as a team leader, working with others to draft proposed standards.

When it comes to observations about TAR that everyone should be able to agree on, Mike identifies three: 1) that TAR is not Artificial Intelligence, just “machine learning – nothing more, nothing less”, 2) that TAR technology works and “TAR applications effectively analyze, categorize, and rank text-based documents”, and 3) “using a TAR application — any TAR application — saves time and money and results in a reasonable and proportional outcome.”  Seems logical to me.

So, when TAR doesn’t work, “the blame may fairly be placed at the feet (and in the minds) of humans.”  We train the software by categorizing the training documents, we operate the software, we analyze the outcome.  So, it’s our fault.

Last month, we covered this case where the plaintiffs successfully requested additional time for discovery when defendant United Airlines, using TAR to manage its review process, produced 3.5 million documents.  However, sampling by the plaintiffs (and later confirmed by United) found that the production contained only 600,000 documents that were responsive to their requests (about 17% of the total production).  That seems like a far less than ideal TAR result to me.  Was that because of human failure?  Perhaps, when it comes down to it, the success of TAR being dependent on humans points us back to the long-used phrase regarding humans and computers: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

So, what do you think?  Should TAR be considered Artificial Intelligence?  As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image Copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Here’s a Terrific Scorecard for Mobile Evidence Discovery: eDiscovery Best Practices

As we’ve noted before, eDiscovery isn’t just about discovery of emails and office documents anymore.  There are so many sources of data these days that legal professionals have to account for and millions more being transmitted over the internet every minute, much of which is being transmitted and managed via mobile devices.  Now, here’s a terrific new Mobile Evidence Burden and Relevance Scorecard, courtesy of Craig Ball!

Craig has had a lot to say in the past about mobile device preservation and collection, even going as far as to say that failure to advise clients to preserve relevant and unique mobile data when under a preservation duty is committing malpractice.  To help lawyers avoid that fate, Craig has described a simple, scalable approach for custodian-directed preservation of iPhone data.

Craig’s latest post (Mobile to the Mainstream, PDF article here) “looks at simple, low-cost approaches to getting relevant and responsive mobile data into a standard e-discovery review workflow” as only Craig can.  But, Craig also “offers a Mobile Evidence Scorecard designed to start a dialogue leading to a consensus about what forms of mobile content should be routinely collected and reviewed in e-discovery, without the need for digital forensic examination.”

It’s that scorecard – and Craig’s discussion of it – that is really cool.  Craig breaks down various types of mobile data (e.g., Files, Photos, Messages, Phone Call History, Browser History, etc.) in terms of Ease of Collection and Ease of Review (Easy, Moderate or Difficult), Potential Relevance (Frequent, Case Specific or Rare) and whether or not you would Routinely Collect (Yes, No or Maybe).  Believe it or not, Craig states that you would routinely collect almost half (7 out of 16 marked as “Yes”, 2 more marked as “Maybe”) of the file types.  While the examples are specific to the iPhone (which I think is used most by legal professionals), the concepts apply to Android and other mobile devices as well.

I won’t steal Craig’s thunder here; instead, I’ll direct you to his post here so that you can check it out yourself.  This scorecard can serve as a handy guide for what lawyers should expect for mobile device collection in their cases.  Obviously, it depends on the lawyer and the type of case in which they’re involved, but it’s still a good general reference guide.

So, what do you think?  Do you routinely collect data from mobile devices for your cases?  And, as always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Court Rejects Plaintiffs’ “Mindlessly Deficient” Objections to Native Format Production: eDiscovery Case Law

In McDonnel Grp., LLC v. Starr Surplus Lines Ins. Co. et al., No. 18-1380 (E.D. La. Oct. 3, 2018), Louisiana Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Wilkinson, Jr. granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion to compel, granting the defendants’ requests for the plaintiffs to produce construction schedules in native format, to identify responsive materials already produced to other specified defendants’ requests and to provide a privilege log for any documents withheld based on privilege to those requests.  Judge Wilkinson denied the defendants’ request for attorney’s fees and other expenses incurred in connection with the defendants’ motion.

Case Background

In this dispute between a general construction contractor and its insurers, the defendants sought production of construction schedules in native format, but the plaintiff asserted that it had produced all responsive materials in PDF format, even though the defendants specified production of “all construction schedules for the Project in their native format (as native files)”, according to Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(1)(C), which provides that a requesting party “may specify the form or forms in which electronically stored information (“ESI”) is to be produced.”  As the responding party, plaintiff was required to “state with specificity the grounds for objecting to the request, including the reasons.”

Judge’s Ruling

As Judge Wilkinson noted (while erroneously referring to the plaintiff as defendants a couple of times): “In their written response to Request No. 34, defendants(sic) complied with none of these requirements. Instead of asserting specific objections or stating that it intended to produce these clearly relevant and discoverable materials in some form other than the requested native format, defendants asserted a mindlessly deficient, boilerplate, stonewalling objection that the request was ‘vague, overly broad, and not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.’…By failing to object to production in native format, defendants(sic) waived that objection… Such information in the construction schedule context, with its frequent alterations, change orders, and time sensitive but often disturbed deadlines, is relevant. The PDF files chosen by plaintiff for production are merely pictures of the materials that do not provide metadata.”

Continuing, he wrote: “Plaintiff offers no proof that production of the requested construction schedules in native format would be unduly burdensome or expensive or that native files are not the way it ordinarily maintains the construction schedules. Instead, it relies upon Rule 34(b)(2)(E)(iii), which provides that “[a] party need not produce the same electronically stored information in more than one form.” Plaintiff dispossessed itself of this protection when it failed to object to production of its native files in its written response or state in its written response that it would produce all requested materials in PDF form, as required in Rule 34(b)(2)(D). To permit a responding party, in the face of a request that ESI be produced in a particular form, arbitrarily to choose some other form, would disrupt and undermine the orderly request/response/objection/confer structure and requirements of the remainder of the Rule concerning ESI. For these reasons, the motion is granted as to Request No. 34. Plaintiff must produce all native files sought in this request, together with a new written response, signed pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g), clearly stating that it has done so.”

Judge Wilkinson also classified the plaintiff’s written responses to other requests as “deficient” and ordered the plaintiff to “provide new written responses to these requests, clearly stating that it has produced all non-privileged responsive materials in its possession, custody or control, signed pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g), and identify those responsive materials by Bates number or other specific identifier. If plaintiff is withholding any materials responsive to these requests on privilege or work product grounds, it must provide the log required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5).”  However, Judge Wilkinson denied the defendants’ request for attorney fees and other expenses incurred in connection with the defendants’ motion.

So, what do you think?  Should failure to provide specific objections to form of production requests automatically waive those objections?  Please let us know if any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Case opinion link courtesy of eDiscovery Assistant.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Today is the Day to “Master” Your Knowledge of eDiscovery in Washington DC for 2018: eDiscovery Trends

It’s here!  Today is the start of the The Master’s Conference DC event!  It’s almost two days of educational sessions covering a wide range of topics!  If you’re in the DC area, it’s not too late to attend!

The Master’s Conference brings together leading experts and professionals from law firms, corporations and the bench to develop strategies, practices and resources for managing eDiscovery and the information life cycle.  This year’s Washington DC event includes nearly two days of educational sessions covers topics ranging from privacy to cybersecurity to social media to cloud computing.  GDPR, blockchain and big data are also significant topics for the event.

The event is being held today and tomorrow at Sidley Austin LLP, 1501 K Street, N.W. #600, Washington, DC 20005.  It’s about three blocks away from the White House.  Registration begins at 8am each day, with sessions starting right after that, at 8:30am.

CloudNine will be sponsoring the session Data, Discovery, and Decisions: Extending Discovery From Collection To Creation at 11:15pm tomorrow.  I will be moderating a panel of eDiscovery experts that includes Mike Quartararo, Founder and Managing director of eDPM Advisory Services and author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery; Robert D. Keeling, Partner with Sidley Austin and an experienced litigator whose practice includes a special focus on electronic discovery matters; and Mimi Singh, General Counsel and Director of Consulting at Sandline Discovery, who has over thirteen years of eDiscovery legal counseling experience.  We will be discussing the challenges that big data place on information governance and legal discovery professionals and potential approaches for addressing those challenges.  Hope you can join us!

Click here to register for the conference.  The cost to attend can be as low as $250 for nearly two days of terrific educational content.  So, if you plan to attend and haven’t registered yet (why not?), now is the time to do it.

This year, The Master’s Conference still has one more event scheduled for Orlando.  Click here for more information on remaining scheduled events for the year.

So, what do you think?  Are you going to be in Washington DC today and tomorrow?  If so, come join us!  And, as always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Project Management from Both Sides: eDiscovery Best Practices, Part Three

Editor’s Note: Tom O’Connor is a nationally known consultant, speaker, and writer in the field of computerized litigation support systems.  He has also been a great addition to our webinar program, participating with me on several recent webinars.  Tom has also written several terrific informational overview series for CloudNine, including his most recent one, Preparing for Litigation Before it Happens, which we covered as a webcast on September 26.  Now, Tom has written another terrific overview regarding pre-litigation considerations titled eDiscovery Project Management from Both Sides that we’re happy to share on the eDiscovery Daily blog.  Enjoy! – Doug

Tom’s overview is split into four parts, so we’ll cover each part separately.  Part one was covered on Monday and part two was covered on Wednesday.  Here’s the third part.

The Lawyer’s Perspective to Project Management

What do lawyers think about this PM discussion? Do they think about it all? First let’s consider what they want from their ED project. Well that’s easy. They want to win their case.

And they want to adequately anticipate and minimize costs while they are winning. As Mike puts it “Clients expect not just cost predictability, but also cost containment.”

Mark Cohen, well known legal commentator and founder of legal delivery consultancy, Legal Mosaic, has been talking about this process for a number of years. In his article 7 Things Lawyers Should Know About Project Management, he defined Project Management as “the application of knowledge, skills and techniques to execute projects effectively and efficiently. It is considered a strategic competency for organizations, enabling them to tie project results to business goals — and thus, better compete in their markets. In its simplest form, Project Management defines the desired result, methodically structures the work into manageable pieces, and provides a framework of business and technology processes to achieve the result efficiently and economically.”

Mark also clearly differentiated PM from delivering a matter for a set price, which he felt was not only has a narrower definition than PM but also is a strategy not well suited to the many changes which often occur in an ESI project. These “unexpected turns”, as Mark calls them, a matter can take are better handled by a change order written into the PM Statement of Work/Engagement Letter.

Marks final thoughts were a nod to the global isolation of the US legal market in working with non-lawyers. He said: “Lawyers should familiarize themselves with project management skills because, without them, they may ultimately find non-lawyers taking charge of integrating and delivery their services, thereby reducing lawyers to a more marginal role in the overall process.”

Another consultant who has advocated PM for many years is Dennis Kennedy, a well-known legal tech commentator who recently retired as VP & Senior Counsel of Digital Payment and Labs at Master Card and is now an adjunct professor of law at Michigan State U School of Law. I clearly remember a 2010 podcast Dennis did with Tom Mighell on the Legal Talk Network called Lawyers as Project Managers, and remember thinking at the time that he was well ahead of the curve on the subject.

More recently, he was a member of a panel discussing PM published by Law Technology Today called Defining Legal Project Management.  In that discussion, Dennis, much like Mike Quartararo, felt that legal PM is based on general PM principles.

But Dennis went one step further saying:

“Lawyers tend to think that everything they do is unique and special. Other than existing in the legal context, I don’t see legal project management as being anything different than general project management.”

He did feel that trained PM managers were a plus because:

“most lawyers don’t learn project management techniques, the results can be hit or miss. You have to know your strengths and weaknesses. I’d want to hire a project manager. You might want to take on that role yourself. You need to take a hard and realistic look at yourself.”

Either way, he did feel that PM is:

“not a fad at all. I see it as a very important trend to watch. Certain clients will start to insist on lawyers using project management and other standard business workflow and process tools.”

He and his fellow panelists pointed to some excellent PM resources for lawyers including the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, the ABA’s Law Practice Division Legal Project Management Interest Group, the Association of Corporate Counsel Legal Operations, Legal Marketing Association’s P3 Practice Innovation Conference, the True Value Partnering Institute, and the Law Vision Group LPM Roundtable.

We’ll publish Part 4 – Conclusion – next Monday.

So, what do you think?  How does your organization apply project management to your eDiscovery projects?  As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Court Rules “No Harm, No Foul” in Allowing Clawback After Protective Order Deadline: eDiscovery Case Law

In the case In re Abilify (Aripiprazole) Prod. Liab. Litig., No. 3:16-md-2734 (N.D. Fla. Sept. 17, 2018), Florida Magistrate Judge Gary R. Jones denied the plaintiff’s Disclosure Motion regarding two documents that defendant Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) claimed were privileged and inadvertently disclosed, stating that “[a]lthough BMS might not have followed the precise terms of the Protective Order”, “the one-day delay in sending the privilege log can charitably be described as a situation where the expression ‘no harm, no foul’ applies.”

Case Background

In this products liability case against pharmaceutical manufacturers, the plaintiffs’ used an internal BMS email and PowerPoint during the January 31, 2018, deposition of BMS’ executive director for Abilify marketing from February 2007-December 2008. The PowerPoint discussed, among other things, BMS’ Corporate Integrity Agreement (“CIA”).  During the deposition, BMS’ counsel objected on the grounds that the use of the PowerPoint contained “privileged . . . confidential information [that] was inadvertently produced, in particular the section that was drafted by and presented by legal.” BMS’ counsel expressly advised the plaintiffs before the conclusion of the deposition that they would be “exercising our clawback rights under our protective order.”

After the deposition was concluded BMS sent an email to the plaintiffs confirming their intent to claw back the email and PowerPoint as inadvertently produced.  While the email did not mention attorney-client privilege and did not contain a privilege log, BMS sent the plaintiffs a notice and associated privilege log on February 5 articulating the basis for clawing back the redacted email and PowerPoint attachment. BMS then produced redacted, replacement versions of the email and PowerPoint.  The plaintiffs claimed that BMS waived privilege because they failed to provide a written notice within two business days from the date of the deposition accompanied by a log articulating the privilege basis for the documents and also argued that the redacted portions of the documents were not privileged because the documents did not convey legal advice.

Judge’s Ruling

Evaluating the plaintiffs’ Disclosure Motion, Judge Jones stated: “Plaintiffs’ argument on timeliness fails for two reasons. First, as a practical matter Plaintiffs were notified at the deposition on January 31, 2018 that BMS asserted a privilege over the documents based upon the fact that a section of the PowerPoint had been prepared by and presented by an attorney. BMS reaffirmed its assertion of its rights under the clawback that same day on January 31, 2018, when it sent a confirming email to Plaintiffs. While the confirming email was not accompanied by a privilege log, there was no mystery at that point that BMS asserted a privilege and sought to claw back the document, as it was entitled to do under the Protective Order.”  While noting that the Protective Order required written notification accompanied by a privilege log within two business days on the deposition (and BMS’ second email wasn’t until the third business day), Judge Jones stated: “Although BMS might not have followed the precise terms of the Protective Order, in the Court’s view the one-day delay in sending the privilege log can charitably be described as a situation where the expression ‘no harm, no foul’ applies. Plaintiffs cannot point to any prejudice they suffered or could have suffered as a result of the receipt of a privilege log one day late, which simply confirmed the privilege timely raised by BMS at the deposition and then confirmed in writing the same day.”

Noting that BMS’ in-house counsel not only participated in the preparation of the PowerPoint, but also that the PowerPoint was part of a presentation by Senior BMS counsel made to BMS management employees, Judge Jones upheld BMS’ privilege designation of the materials and denied the plaintiffs’ Disclosure Motion.

So, what do you think?  How much leeway should be given to inadvertent disclosures when they fall outside of the parameters of a protective order?  Please let us know if any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Case opinion link courtesy of eDiscovery Assistant.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Project Management from Both Sides: eDiscovery Best Practices, Part Two

Editor’s Note: Tom O’Connor is a nationally known consultant, speaker, and writer in the field of computerized litigation support systems.  He has also been a great addition to our webinar program, participating with me on several recent webinars.  Tom has also written several terrific informational overview series for CloudNine, including his most recent one, Preparing for Litigation Before it Happens, which we covered as a webcast on September 26.  Now, Tom has written another terrific overview regarding pre-litigation considerations titled eDiscovery Project Management from Both Sides that we’re happy to share on the eDiscovery Daily blog.  Enjoy! – Doug

Tom’s overview is split into four parts, so we’ll cover each part separately.  Part one was covered on Monday.  Here’s the second part.

The Project Manager’s Perspective to Project Management

How do project managers define their role? Well Mike sets it out on his company website when he says:

Project management is the structured application of skill, knowledge, tools and techniques to organize activities and bring about a desired outcome that meets a project or business need. While this may seem abstract, it is really quite simple: In the business world, even in a professional service field like the legal industry, there are business needs or goals that an organization may have interest in achieving. Organizations engage the person with the right skills, knowledge and talent to achieve these objectives and manage the necessary work. That person is a project manager. Project managers use their industry experience, education and training to complete tasks and the overall project work. They understand the resources, tools and workflows necessary. They are able to interact with people and organizations to perform the actual work. But project management is not a single “thing” or practice. It is not a specific tool that one simply picks up and transposes over the work in a particular industry. Rather, it is an operational theory and series of practices; a way of thinking; a methodical, disciplined approach to outcome-oriented work. There are principles, defined practices, tools and techniques involved, but more than any one thing, project management is an organizational tool. It is a framework that facilitates efficiency, quality, cost, and risk containment. Project management in the context of legal support also involves leadership of people…

He then goes on to offer some useful definitions, including:

  • Project: A temporary, non-routine endeavor limited by scope, time, and cost that creates a unique product, service, or result.
  • Project management: The structured application of skill, knowledge, tools, and techniques to organize project activities designed to efficiently bring about a desired outcome.
  • Project manager: The person possessing the applicable skill, knowledge, and talent, who is assigned by an organization and responsible for actively managing the project.
  • Process: The discreet steps, actions, or operations one takes to achieve project objectives, the tools used, and an understanding of what each part of a project will look.

But perhaps most important is that Mike feels quite strongly that “eDiscovery PM comes only after you have a firm grounding in general project management principles. Those principles are ideally suited to a project which has repetitive and dependent tasks, a variety of people and organizations involved and the need to better manage scope, timing, and costs.” ( https://www.relativity.com/blog/the-anatomy-of-project-management/ , August 29, 2016).

Which of these principles can we use in eDiscovery?  I’d suggest the following points made by Mike as being the most critical:

  1. Cost: The ability to estimate, budget, and manage the costs of the project.
  2. Scope: What Mike calls “What does done look like?”
  3. Time: The Project Management Lifecycle to avoid missed deadlines and fragmented schedules which lead to added cost
  4. Tools & Techniques: What tools are required, including written protocols or best practices?
  5. Output: requirements during and at the conclusion of an ESI project

I should note that Mike goes into even more detail when discussing the Project Management Lifecycle. He breaks the lifecycle down into five Project Management Process Groups. He describes this as a framework which he describes in this graphic:

Mike also goes on to say that the lifecycle does not end here. Within each process group there are areas of responsibility that a project manager must focus on throughout a project.

Known as the Knowledge Areas, these are the core process elements in each of the five process groups:

  • Integration management
  • Human resource management
  • Scope management
  • Communication management
  • Time management
  • Risk management
  • Cost management
  • Procurement management
  • Quality management
  • Stakeholder management

All of these provide a framework for the project manager to estimate, budget, and manage a project. And these traditional project management methodologies work equally well in the e-discovery context. As Mike said in the blog post quoted above, “Doing things like planning, communicating, setting clear expectations, figuring out what ‘done’ looks like, [are] just a sensible means of approaching litigation and e-discovery in particular,”

We’ll publish Part 3 – The Lawyer’s Perspective to Project Management – on Friday.

So, what do you think?  How does your organization apply project management to your eDiscovery projects?  As always, please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Judge Recommends Sanctions for Defendant Under FRCP 37(e)(1): eDiscovery Case Law

In Franklin v. Howard Brown Health Ctr., No. 17 C 8376 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 4, 2018), the Illinois Magistrate Judge, stating that “the defendant has had to concede that, at the very least, it bollixed its litigation hold – and it has done so to a staggering degree and at every turn”, recommended that the plaintiff’s motion for discovery sanctions be granted to the extent that the “parties be allowed to present evidence and argument to the jury regarding the defendant’s destruction/failure to preserve electronic evidence in this case”.

Case Background

In this case for workplace harassment and discrimination, this particular dispute began with the plaintiff’s document request, which required the defendant to produce emails and text messages exchanged between certain key parties involving the plaintiff.  The defendant referred plaintiff to a number of “emails” already produced, but the plaintiff was looking for “instant messages,” as this was the method the plaintiff alleged the individuals used to harass him, but the defendant produced only two of those, despite the fact that deposition testimony indicated that was the standard way employees communicated with one another and one of the key parties said he saved “instant messages” to his Outlook email folder (despite the defendant’s claims that they weren’t as a matter of course).

According to the plaintiff’s supervisor, the plaintiff specifically promised a lawsuit based on “racism, transphobia and sexism” among the staff as early as July 24, 2015, but the defendant’s attorney categorized that as a “vague threat”.  One of the plaintiff’s alleged harassers left the company a mere two days after that, but his computer was wiped within 7 days of his last day at work.  According to the defendant’s general counsel, the litigation hold was not instituted until August 28, 2015.  In the GC’s affidavit, she indicated that he instructed an IT administrator to remove the plaintiff’s computer from the wiping process, but apparently never followed up or looked at the computer (that IT administrator had also left the company and was also now suing the defendant) and that data was lost as well.  The defendant’s GC also never instructed anyone in the IT department to stop the auto-delete of any saved instant messages – as a result, “barely a handful” of them were produced.

Judge’s Ruling

Noting that the “failure to preserve electronic evidence is covered by Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(e)”, the Magistrate Judge said that “In the end, given at least what appears to be the defendant’s gross negligence – and that’s viewing things favorably to the defendant – the best route is that proposed by the Advisory Committee in its notes to the 2015 amendment to Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(e)(1), specifically, allowing the parties to present evidence to the jury regarding the situation that was caused by defendant’s faulty and failed litigation hold… Accordingly, it is recommended that parties be allowed to present evidence and argument to the jury regarding the defendant’s destruction/failure to preserve electronic evidence in this case, and that the jury be instructed as the trial judge deems appropriate.”

So, what do you think?  Is the recommendation an appropriate application of FRCP 37(e)(1)?  Please let us know if any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Also, it’s time for the Fall 2018 eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey on Rob Robinson’s Complex Discovery site.  This quarter’s survey is unique in the fact that it asks three additional questions beyond the standard nine business confidence questions asked during the previous eleven surveys. These new questions are focused on understanding operational business trajectories around the areas of days sales outstanding (DSO), monthly recurring revenue (MRR), and revenue distribution across customer bases.  The response period is between today and achievement of 66 responses or November 30, 2018 (whichever comes first).  66 is not a lot of responses, so you’ll want to get your response in quickly!  We’ll cover the results once they’re published.

Case opinion link courtesy of eDiscovery Assistant.

Sponsor: This blog is sponsored by CloudNine, which is a data and legal discovery technology company with proven expertise in simplifying and automating the discovery of data for audits, investigations, and litigation. Used by legal and business customers worldwide including more than 50 of the top 250 Am Law firms and many of the world’s leading corporations, CloudNine’s eDiscovery automation software and services help customers gain insight and intelligence on electronic data.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.